"Maybe you should turn away," Victoria said, and Angie gladly obliged, turning her attention to the ongoing battle in the main room. The blood rushed wild in Victoria's veins as if it knew what she was about to do.
"Soporo," she whispered, and it quieted automatically. She kissed Christian's cold lips and drew the barely discernable blade of the amulet across her right wrist, wincing at the sting.
"Cruentus renovo!" she said, willing the blood magic to heal him as she pressed her wrist to his lips. Her heart was racing—her gamble could kill him instantly.
The pressure was soft at first and then stronger as he clamped her hand to his mouth and drew her strength into him greedily, desperately. She brushed her free hand against his hair and his silver eyes opened, staring into hers with luminous faith. She could see the recognition and every emotion he'd ever had since they had met flash through their liquid depths. Victoria was bleeding her life into his mouth and willing him to live, willing him to live for her ... for them.
"Desino," she gasped, commanding him to stop as her wound closed on its own. She shook her head to clear it as Christian fell back, his lips rimmed in black. She could see the color flooding his skin, the new blood overtaking his ravenous, empty body, and he bucked against its foreignness. His wounds healed instantly as the new blood forced the poisons out, and still he writhed in silent transformation. Angie had scooted herself to the edge of the room, her eyes wide with fear and confusion, and when Victoria looked worriedly at her, she wrapped her arms around her knees rocking back and forth.
"What is it, Angie?" Victoria asked, watching as Christian continued his painful metamorphosis on the floor. She'd known that it wasn't going to be easy.
"You should see what's happening, it's unbelievable," Angie said, trembling uncontrollably. "It's like everything that is you is going into him and right now he is in complete upheaval. His very nature is fighting against it ... everything dead ... against everything so vibrantly alive! It's the most chaotically beautiful thing I have ever seen," she said, excited and terrified all at the same time.
After several tense moments, Christian sat upright and stared at Victoria. His eyes were bright, unsure but so incredibly knowing, it made it suddenly hard to breathe. And time stopped along with her breath when he crushed her to his chest and kissed her with the fierce, aching tenderness of a starving man too long deprived. She tasted a tangy sweetness on his lips and knew it to be her own blood. It electrified her more than she'd ever thought possible. They strained toward each other for what seemed like an eternity, bodies trembling and blood on fire, until he finally lifted her face to his, his thumb brushing the fullness of her cheek.
"Tori ..." His exquisite voice was like rough velvet and she almost wept at the sheer beauty of hearing it again. "What did you do?" Her throat choked at his inane question, he knew exactly what she had done, but she knew what he meant. He meant how.
"I didn't know if it would work, but it did. I controlled the blood magic. I did it this time." She was overwhelmed at the power that lived within her, and the magnitude of what she'd done. Christian had been on the verge of death one second and now he was completely rejuvenated in a matter of minutes after consuming barely an ounce of her blood.
The same poisonous blood that could kill and destroy everything in its path, she had magically commanded to save him. And now he was awake, and alive. Victoria touched his face, emotion clogging her throat, and noticed that his once clear silver eyes were now rimmed in black, startling and unique ... a part of her now part of him.
A sudden crash from the room next door had them all on their feet. Enhard had just leapt off the wall to smash into the marble floor just where Gabriel's head had been, and there was a hole in the floor where his foot had crushed through the marble. They were circling each other again, and Gabriel was repeating something over and over in a monotonous chant. It was very dark magic. Victoria knew it as certainly as she knew herself—she could feel it sucking the energy from the air around them. She raced into the middle of the room.
"Enhard, get down!" she said, blasting a stunning spell toward Gabriel, which his shield spell easily deflected. In the split second before Gabriel's spell left his fingers, Victoria noticed something crouching in the shadows ... Lucian. He met her eyes and stood.
"Incendo maleficus," Gabriel shouted.
A low warning scream tore from her throat, just as Gabriel released the yellow-rimmed black fire that had formed between his hands at the exact same moment Enhard looked toward the doorway, drawn by the movement there. Lucian stood there like a statue, silent and detached, his white face calculating. That millisecond of distraction was Enhard's undoing.
The black fireball hit Enhard squarely in the middle of his chest and engulfed his body in black demonic flames. He didn't even flinch even though the dark spell would have been excruciating. Instead, he looked across at Christian, linking eyes with his and bowed. Then he looked at Victoria and did the same. She bit her lip watching impotently as he closed his eyes and was incinerated within seconds.
"NO!!!" The agonized roar was from Christian, a blur of movement as he grabbed Gabriel in a choke-hold, crushing his windpipe until his face went gray. With colossal strength, he flung Gabriel's body as if it were made of air against the wall, the sound of wetly crunching bone echoing in the cavernous room.
Gabriel fell to the ground gasping nonsensically, his splintered bones irreparable. Blood seeped into the floor beneath him and he gurgled helplessly. Christian fell to the ground where the only remnant of Enhard was a black smear on the marble floor, and touched a closed fist to his forehead in reverence to the man who had been like a father to him.
Christian rose after several minutes, suddenly cognizant of the newfound fluidity of his movements. He could sense the old hunger in him but it did not bother him at all; in fact, he was strangely oblivious to it. He stared at his hands, flexing them and feeling their new tensile strength, the extraordinary blood flowing in his veins from the tips of his fingers along his arms through his chest and throughout his entire body. His insides felt like they were gilded with light, Le Sang Noir tracing a fiery phosphorescent path everywhere it touched inside him, transforming, metamorphosing. Powerful.
He looked incredulously at Victoria. Christian didn't know how she had done it, but from sheer force of will, her deadly blood had fed him and saved him when it should have killed him. It was impossible.
Victoria remained silent, her eyes glued to his. She knew that if by some horrific chance, the blood turned him into something worse, she would be the only one who could kill him.
"WELL DONE, BROTHER," Lucian said, pulling up from his slouch and walking into the room clapping loudly. "You have saved the day as always!" The sarcastic amusement in his tone was evident. Christian looked merely curious that Lucian was even there, and Victoria stared at him with wary distaste. Lucian's saccharine tone irked her. She knew why he was here; he had come to finish his brother off, and he had also come in search of her ... to fulfill the prophecy that haunted him.
She watched in slow motion as he walked over to Gabriel's inert body and pressed his booted foot to his throat. He was still breathing. Locking eyes with Victoria, his face was cruel as he stepped with all his weight, breaking Gabriel's neck in seconds. The wet sound of crushed flesh and bone echoed in the room. Gabriel did not move. Lucian smiled with savage pleasure.
"No!" Victoria shouted. "You are sick! You really are a monster!"
"He attacked my brother."
"Strange that you weren't worried about your brother when I came to see you in Paris," Victoria said. "I warned you, Lucian."
"Warned me not to help my brother? You forget yourself," he said. Victoria looked at him with distaste.
"I can hardly forget that you were the one saying that if your brother was meant to die, then so be it. I also can't forget that you tried to kill me," she said, watching Christian's reaction out of the corner of her eye. She was not disappointed. He whirled
in a fluid twist, his silver eyes like diamond chips and Lucian involuntarily backed up a step.
"What's this?" Christian asked, carelessly, like he was asking about the weather, but a muscle began its familiar movement in his jaw.
"Do you know what she is, brother?" Lucian said. "Of course you do, you played me for a fool and I listened to your song and dance about the prophecy not being about her, and that her blood was poison! You knew and you lied!"
"I did not lie, Lucian," he said. "Her blood was poison."
"You still protect her?" Lucian was snarling now. His overwhelming desire for Le Sang Noir impeded his better judgment, and his eyes were starting to go wild at Victoria's nearness, feeling the heat of the forbidden blood that surged so sweetly beneath the surface of her flushed skin. Such torment ... he could barely concentrate. It was so strange that he had never noticed it before until she had deliberately revealed it to him in Paris, and now it was like a tempting secret suddenly naked and exposed.
Christian watched Lucian, knowing the signs of the change intimately. He glanced around the room. Angie had wedged herself into a corner staring at them with unfocused frightened eyes as if she were watching something totally different in her head. She had moved Gabriel's body away from where Lucian had been standing and he lay just a few feet away from her. Her fist was pressed against her mouth as if to stop herself from screaming. Victoria was silent.
"Lucian," Christian said.
Lucian's long, lithe body started to lope with a familiar grace as the hunger spread through him, and he fought to control it. It was a losing battle.
"Lucian," said Christian roughly. "Snap out of it!" He tried to grab Lucian's shoulder and Lucian backed away ever so slightly, only to continue his frenzied shifting. "Lucian, that's what it does. I have seen it ... it lures you in and then it kills you. Trust me."
"Trust you?" Lucian's laugh was hollow and completely devoid of any humor. "I never should have trusted you. You couldn't stand to see me more powerful than you, that's why you hid it from me!" Christian looked at his brother's twisted face in stunned surprise.
"Is that what you think I've done? Saved you from a deathly mistake so that I could be more powerful than you?" Christian said slowly. Lucian's eyes were over-bright, and the truth of his feelings was clear as he glared murderously at Christian. "I left so that you could have the power you craved, to rule the House of Devereux as you wanted, not because I wanted to be more powerful than you!" Christian's body was rigid with disbelief at his brother's complete and utter hatred toward him. "We are brothers ..."
Lucian laughed humorlessly. "We are the furthest thing from brothers there ever was. Mother worshipped the ground you walked on. You were always the first. I only have the House because you left—"
"For you!" Christian said.
"You took Lena, you hid the prophecy from me, and now, her—"
"Lena?" Christian looked at Lucian like he was demented. "You have Lena!"
"But she has always wanted you, she was always yours, she still is!" Christian's eyes flew to Victoria's knowing that the turn in conversation would not be easy for her. Her face was inscrutable but he could see her white, clenched fingers.
"Lucian, what happened with Lena happened. I can't change the past. And if you wanted her so damned badly, you should have gone to the Council yourself," he said. Christian sighed and raked his hands through his hair. "What is this really about, Lucian? Le Sang Noir? You really think it's the answer to everything?"
"Yes." Lucian's voice was sulky.
"Well, it isn't, just ask her!" he said, looking over at Victoria.
It was entirely the wrong thing to do, and Christian cursed himself as soon as he said it. When he had been speaking to Lucian, he had unconsciously redirected Lucian's attention to himself and away from Victoria, but the second that he'd pointed toward Victoria, everything pivoted onto itself.
It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room.
Lucian snarled, dropping into a feral crouch, transformation complete as he became the hunter ... and his prey was Victoria. Christian shoved her behind him, and a low fierce roar tore from his chest as he faced his brother.
"Don't do it, Lucian," he growled. But Lucian didn't hesitate as he leapt with all his strength right at Christian, his hands connecting with his chest as they both went flying.
Christian barely had enough time to shove Victoria out of the way as Lucian snapped his teeth perilously close to her neck. He was unfamiliar with his newfound strength and she catapulted backward, her head cracking against the marble. She lay motionless on the cold floor, a thin trickle of dark blood dampening her hairline. The scent alone was enough to drive Lucian into a feeding frenzy as he whirled toward its source.
Christian twisted his body, wrapping his leg around Lucian's waist with enough leverage to flip him over, and held him down with the weight of his body. Lucian snarled even more ferociously as the terrible hunger clawed its monstrous way out of him; there was nothing human left inside of him. He threw a knee up into Christian's gut with brute force, heard him grunt in response, and then kicked with his other leg sending Christian somersaulting head over heels.
Lucian was on his feet in minutes, his teeth gnashing together in sheer rage at being thwarted, but the minute he turned to spring toward her motionless form, a bodily missile tackled him from behind. They rolled along the floor in a flurry of blows, their arms moving with silent and furious invisible speed. Christian sprang to his feet just as Lucian leveled a blow to his head that shattered the marble floor.
Christian was holding back because he wasn't sure that he could control the liquid heat inside of him, licking at his vampire senses like flames. Lucian lunged and landed a wallop that snapped Christian's head sideways. Christian answered with a vicious uppercut to Lucian's jaw and the crack resounded through the room as his jaw dislocated.
Within seconds, Lucian had re-aligned it and it healed into place even as he dived growling, his sharp nails slicing Christian's exposed chest. The wounds healed as expected and Christian swung around to counter his bloody attack, but Lucian was backing away slowly, watching him with an incredulous expression, his nostrils flaring. His eyes flicked from Victoria's still form to Christian in disbelief.
Confused, Christian looked down at his chest and touched the thin lines of blood that had welled along where Lucian had scratched him, a telltale blackly-red color smearing on his fingertip. He smelled it too, different now but still the same underlying cloying heady scent.
Lucian's incredulous expression had transformed to one of accusation and then his face hardened into a mask of freezing rage. Christian hesitated in shock as his vampire instincts responded to the sight of the blood that was his but not his. The hesitation cost him dearly as Lucian spun with inhuman speed and snatched Victoria's body to his.
He held her in front of him, his fingers around her slim neck as her head lolled unconscious to the side.
"You liar!" he snarled. "You took her blood, I can smell it in you."
"Lucian, don't!" Christian said. "I didn't take it. She gave it to me but she altered it first—" He couldn't finish because Lucian had started laughing uncontrollably, the sound harsh and terrible in the silence.
"Come on, Christian, face it," he said. "She's going to die and I am going to take her blood, same as you. We both wanted it from the minute we saw her, you just got to her first." His smile was cruel.
Christian could see Lucian's terrible teeth lengthening even more as his face contorted into a terrifying grimace, leaning over Victoria's exposed throat, his eyes never leaving Christian's. Christian half lunged and Lucian shook his head in warning, dropping his mouth an inch closer to her neck.
"Don't fight it, Christian," he said. "I want you to enjoy this."
In that moment, something burst within Christian. He didn't recognize it but it flooded his stomach and his heart with wild energy. It raced unhinged along his limbs tingling like tiny bolts of electricity r
esponding to an unspoken command and pooling purposefully and then flowing back out again. Christian swallowed hard as the pulsing power took complete ownership of his limbs, and he felt a shiver of fear for what was happening, so devastatingly silent inside of him. Was this what Victoria talked about when she spoke about the energy of the blood?
It couldn't be ...
Cruentus protectum, it whispered in her voice. Defend the blood.
In a moment of sudden clarity, Christian realized what he had to do. One glance at Lucian, a hair's breadth away from Victoria's neck, and he made his decision. He let his walls fall.
Christian flinched as the strange magic slid into his consciousness. Its touch was curiously familiar. It felt like Victoria, the silent part of her that stared at him, shyly wondrous when she thought he wasn't looking, the quiet bit of her that tucked her hair behind her ears self-consciously whenever she saw him looking at her, and the calm side of her that lay curled up trustingly every night she fell asleep in his vampire arms.
He would trust it, and trust her, just like she'd always trusted him. He didn't fight it when it captured his conscious mind, wild with intent.
Blood magic.
Lucian's elongated fangs were at the skin of Victoria's neck when Christian stared at him, their silver eyes locking, only Christian's weren't silver any more ... they were the silvery black of a moonlit sky, and Lucian's eyes widened in bewilderment.
"Confuto," Christian's lips said, only it wasn't his voice, it was a whisper soft musical sound that took shape in his mouth. And Lucian obediently froze, staring at him in astonishment. "Libero," the voice continued, and Victoria's body floated gently down to the ground where she softly stirred but did not awaken. Lucian's eyes widened even more until he couldn't even bear to look at his brother. And still the voice continued in its musical softness, "Curo!" Lucian stared at Christian completely at a loss for words, he couldn't even move.
Release me, Christian! Lucian thought to him angrily, and then he paused. How is this even possible, you can't do magic! You're a vampire! And what the hell is wrong with your eyes?
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